


Phases of the Moon

by Teeelsie



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winterhawk - Fandom
Genre: Awesome Bucky Barnes, BAMF Clint Barton, But don't worry - he's fine, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, Hurt/Comfort, Lucky in potential peril, M/M, Secret relationship (of a sort), Some angst, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, fraction!hawkeye, my attempt at it anyway, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:55:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21995596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teeelsie/pseuds/Teeelsie
Summary: It’s Clint’s 8th soul mark Flare and, to be honest, he’s kinda done with the whole thing.  That’s what he tries to tell himself anyway.  He might actually be able to convince himself it's true, if this time he didn't have Bucky Barnes' red star over his heart.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 158
Kudos: 896
Collections: Winterhawk Wonderland





	Phases of the Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LoonyLoopyLisa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLoopyLisa/gifts).



> A gift for LoonyLoopyLisa for the WinterHawk Wonderland fic exchange. One of her prompts was "Secret Relationship/Soul Bond". This is...outside my normal wheelhouse (like, outside, down the block, around the corner and then continue on for a ways...), and it doesn't quite straight-up hit the prompt. I literally drafted three other fic with different premises before scrapping all of them because they were so awful. And then I wrote this in two days. I sincerely hope you like it, L3!
> 
> Thanks to the Mods for running the event and especially for giving me a late posting date!
> 
> Much thanks to my fantastic betas, Milly and Britt, who both ran through this at the very last minute, making it a much better fic. I continued to edit long after they returned it, so I'm certain there will be bugs. Also, thanks to @Awheckery for cheerleading and encouragement.

Waxing Crescent

For once, Clint is the first to arrive for the debrief. Coulson’s been tapping away at his tablet for the last five minutes while Clint’s been rerunning in his head the shots he made during the battle, looking for things he could have done better. He’s about half way through his self-critique when the door opens and the rest of the Avengers file in.

He feels an unexpected pulse on his chest over his heart, a flare of heat that almost burns - but doesn’t quite - then dissipates into a pleasant tingle.

He drops his head onto the table with a loud ‘thunk’ and curses to himself. “Aw, soulmate, no,” he mutters quietly.

“You have something to say, Hawkeye?” Coulson asks.

Clint jerks his head up and looks around at the collected group of superheroes who had just filed into the room. A few of them are looking at him curiously. “No, Sir,” he says, letting his eyes sweep across his teammates. It could be any of them: Rogers, Stark, Banner, Barnes, Wilson, Rhodey…not Nat, though. He’s been down that road before and he knows there won’t be a spider on his chest, _again_. He eyes Coulson speculatively for a second. Oh, wait, no, he’d had that tiny tie emblazoned over his heart a couple years back.

He’s itching to peer under his shirt, but he can’t with everyone sitting around the table for a debrief. They would all immediately know what he was doing, and then the damned symbol – whatever it is – would quickly fade. No. He has to wait until he can get out of here and look in private.

He pushes the intrusive thoughts away and tries to concentrate on the debrief.

* * *

In Clint’s experience, soul marks are not something to look forward to. He knows the statistics, that about 30% of the population will Flare, and of those Potentials, about 90% convert to a true soulmate match. Clint doesn’t know if he’s just unlucky, or if there’s something fundamentally wrong with him (he suspects the latter), but he’s had seven soul mark Flares over the years, and none of them have ever converted. He’s mostly spent the last couple years hoping he’d never Flare again, because the heartache of losing another Potential is too much to think about.

The lore says that the seemingly arbitrary rules of soul mark Flares and conversion have something to do with some jerk who tried to game the system a millennium ago, but all Clint knows is that the universe has stupid rules. Like, if you tell anyone that you’ve Flared - even hint that you might have a soul match - the mark disappears instantly, along with the Potential. And, once a soul mark appears over your heart, you have a single lunar cycle to convert it, in other words, to somehow convince your Potential they love you, so they Flare in response. Only one-half of a soul match Flares; if the other half doesn’t convert, the Potential disappears and only the one who Flared is the wiser. It would all be a much simpler thing if you could just _tell_ your Potential that you Flared for them, and then set about getting to know each other and hopefully find that the feeling is mutual. But the rules are rigid, and Clint knows from experience that they can’t be broken. 

He learned it the hard way when he Flared for the first time at age 16. He’d been so excited that he’d shown Barney the small infinity symbol positioned just over his heart. One of the younger roustabouts that Clint and Barney were friendly with had the same symbol tattooed on his left wrist and Clint just knew it had to be him – that he was Clint’s Potential. Barney had hissed at him to cover it up, but before the words had even been out of his mouth, the symbol had begun to fade, and within seconds, it was gone entirely.

“Idiot!” Barney had barked at him, cuffing him in the head with an open hand. “Serves you right. You’ll never have a soul mate if you can’t keep your mouth shut.”

Clint didn’t make the same mistake the next time.

Only six months later, he Flared again, and he couldn’t believe his luck that he would get a second chance. His Potential that time was one of the aerialists at Carson’s circus – the Flare of her pink tiara over his heart made it obvious. Clint had a hard time thinking about that one without wincing. He’d been young and stupid, and he’d made a fool of himself trying to convert her. She’d had a boyfriend at the time, though, and never gave Clint a second glance, except to look at him like he’d grown two heads at his increasingly bizarre behavior toward her. By the end of the lunar cycle, she’d been pivoting to go in the opposite direction whenever she saw him coming.

When he was 22, he Flared with an AK-47 over his heart. Each Flare mark was unique, and theoretically, it would be immediately obvious who your Potential was. Unfortunately, Clint was one of a hundred people working for a mercenary outfit at the time, a solid half of whom were walking around the camp with an AK tucked under their arm like it was their baby. Clint had no idea who he should be aiming for – so to speak. The lunar cycle came and went, and, despite his increasingly frantic efforts to figure it out, he never did know which one of them was his Potential.

He flared for the Black Widow the day he was sent to kill her, so he brought her in, instead. Natasha was no damsel in distress, but he could see her tight fear that the devil she didn’t know might be worse than the one she did, and Clint wasn’t the kind of jerk who used people’s vulnerabilities against them. He didn’t even try to convert her. It hadn’t hurt her at all – she’d never known the loss - and it had only hurt him a little. Well, okay, maybe a lot. But he’d been through it before and he had survived.

But love didn’t have to come in the form of a soul mate. He’d fallen in love with Bobbi and married her when he was 28, after he’d long since given up hope of ever converting with a soul mate. A year later, he’d been shocked to Flare for an MI-6 agent they were running a cooperative op with. Things were already rocky with Bobbi by then, but he didn’t think that gave him the right to flirt with someone else, or be untrue to their vows. Instead, he intentionally kept his distance, only interacted with the woman when necessary. It was a tricky month, having to find endless excuses to never take his shirt off in front of his wife, but when the lunar cycle ran its course, so did the soul mark over Clint’s heart. Six months later, so did his marriage.

The tiny, striped tie that Flared over his heart told him that Coulson was his sixth Potential. He’d laughed bitterly when he’d seen it, knowing there was no way it would be converted, given that, a) Coulson was way out of his league, and b) they were both on long-term ops - him in Guatemala and Coulson in India. He considered leaving his post and giving it a shot, but even if he found Coulson, he’d be going AWOL if he left an active op. Also, see ‘a)’ above. Most importantly, though, if he left and something went wrong, Clint would never be able to forgive himself for putting his selfish desires over the safety of his team. Instead, he spent a month in the jungle, alternately edgy and depressed, but doing his futzing job, and then he’d done his best to put it behind him.

The last time – two years ago – had been an ATF agent he’d met when SHIELD had worked together with the agency to take down some arms dealers. Clint had actually let his hopes rise; they seemed well-matched, and they got along well. For the first time in his adult life, Clint did his best to convert the Potential – really tried. He’d flirted - subtly - and the agent seemed to respond. They’d gone for drinks a couple times, had lunch a few more. But the month wore on and nothing had changed, and when the sun came up after the last night, the agent’s badge number had faded from the skin over his heart.

After that one, Clint resigned himself to the fact that there must be something fundamentally wrong with him and that he’d never convert a Flare. Mostly he just hoped he wouldn’t have to go down that road again.

He sighs and looks around the table at the rest of the Avengers, wonders whose symbol is on his chest. Although, really, what difference does it make? It’s not as though he’s going to be able to convert any of these people: they’re superheroes, and he’s just a wannabe with a bow who sometimes – okay, oftentimes - finds getting out of bed in the morning difficult. There is no good reason why any of them would convert a Flare from Clint.

He’s nauseous just thinking about the new round of heartache coming his way.

* * *

“Thank you, all. Nice work today.” Coulson dismisses them, and Clint is the first one out of the room. Darting down the hall to the nearest bathroom, he locks himself in and stands in front of the mirror for a long time, trying to gather up the courage to look. Eventually, he unbuckles his tac vest and tears it off, then grabs the bottom of his under-armor and yanks if over his head.

Shit. Clint stares at himself in the mirror. His face and arms are dirty from the battle, and there’s a small streak of blood on his neck – he has no idea what from. But his torso stands out in clean, white relief, and clearly visible over his heart, is the mark that wasn’t there an hour ago.

It’s Barnes.

He would have given anything for it to be anyone _but_ Barnes, because, Barnes…he already wants Barnes. For three months – since Rogers brought him back to New York – Clint’s been watching Barnes and, well, maybe he’s developed a little bit of a crush. The way his muscles flex and bunch, his murder-walk, his pretty near perfect aim - hell, even his metal arm – it all kind of turns him on to a degree he doesn’t want to admit. Then again, watching the man eat a taco kind of does it for Clint, too, so…yeah, he’s a little bit over the moon for Barnes. 

But he’d never let himself think about Barnes in a soul mate kind of way, had actively hoped he’d never become a Potential. Because as a general rule, Clint doesn’t get the things in life that he wants. Seven previous Flares have netted him exactly nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Clint may be undereducated in the traditional sense, but he’s smart enough to recognize a pattern. Any chance he might have had with Barnes (which he knew was already slim) is completely gone now.

Clint wets his hand in the sink and rubs at the small, red star newly positioned over his heart, trying to wipe it away, even though he knows it’s futile. He braces his hands on the sink and drops his head, sighing deeply. He considers telling someone, getting rid of the Potential before he has a chance to get his hopes up. But he can’t quite bring himself to do that.

He looks up at his reflection again. There are creases on his face and dark circles under his eyes that he doesn’t remember seeing this morning. He’s tired. Tired of losing, tired of trying, tired of heartache.

He pushes off the sink and stands up straight, coming to a decision. He’s not going to invest his heart this time. He can’t do it again. He’ll ignore the Flare, live his life, say hello to Barnes if he sees him, but he’s not going to try to convert his Potential. And maybe, in a month when the star fades and blinks out altogether, it won’t gut him quite as badly as all the others had.

He looks out of the bathroom window at the dark, night sky. The moon is a waxing crescent.

Not that he cares.

* * *

He leaves the bathroom and heads for the locker room to shower, nearly bumping into Rogers, who is on his way out.

“Pizza de-brief?” Rogers asks.

It had been a fairly routine call involving A.I.M. and their most recent attempt at world domination. Thankfully, none of their scientist have brains nearly as big as Stark’s or Banner’s, so Clint and the team were able to contain the cell in only a few hours. Steve likes to pick his brain sometimes, after they debrief with Coulson, and walk through what Clint saw and why he made certain moves, did certain things.

The first time Rogers asked him if he would explain some of his tactical decisions to him, he’d been defensive, afraid that Cap was going to challenge him, try to micromanage what he did in the field. He tried to put Rogers off, told him he was famished and needed some food. Rogers offered to buy him pizza and, well, Clint knew he’d left his wallet at home and barely had subway fare in his pocket. He could spend the next two hours making his way to Bed-Stuy where he had no food in his refrigerator and would have to go out and get some. Or he could let Rogers buy him a pizza. His stomach rumbled loudly and the decision was made for him. He could always just stonewall Cap and promise to be better and then do what he always did – which was exactly as he saw fit.

Turned out Cap didn’t dress him down; he mostly just listened, his face sometimes getting an intense look of concentration when Clint explained how he saw the field of play. The thing is, Clint knows he’s got a head for physics. Not like Tony – he can’t invent stuff. More like… for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and Clint can _see_ that in his head - where stuff is gonna go and how things will react.

That had been the first of many post-action pizzas they’d shared, talking through battles in detail. Well, mostly Clint talked and Rogers nodded his head a lot. And he asked a lot of questions. Tough questions. But Clint did his best to explain his thinking because Cap was their team leader and he could get Clint bounced out of the Initiative if he felt like Clint wasn’t being a team player. It was hard to explain at first, but as the two of them developed a common vocabulary it came easier. Clint didn’t think it was just his imagination, but it seemed like the more they’d talked through ops, the more smoothly they worked in the field; Rogers sometimes anticipated his moves, and didn’t yell at him as much when Clint went off-book and called his own plays.

“Sure. Meet you at Guido’s in 45?” Clint answers.

“Sounds good.” Rogers pushes the door open. “See you then.”

Forty-five minutes later, Clint is settled into a booth at Guido’s, has ordered their standard pizza and a couple beers, and he’s scrolling through his phone while he waits for Rogers to show. A few minutes pass before he looks up to see Rogers walking toward him. It’s not until he moves to sit in the booth across from him that Clint sees that Barnes was behind him the whole time. Damn Rogers and his damned shoulders that are so damn wide they can eclipse the sun.

The thing of it is, if anyone has a right to be bitter and angry, it’s Bucky Barnes. Clint had been, after Loki, before SHIELD dangled the carrot of the Avengers Initiative in front of him and coerced him into _months_ of shrink appointments. So bitterness and anger, hard angles and brittle edges, were what Clint had expected when he’d first heard that Rogers was bringing in the Winter Soldier. But Barnes is none of that, is the thing. Barnes is…soft. If you can say that about a metal-armed super soldier who was a murder-bot for 70 years. For one thing, he smiles in a shy kind of way that Clint finds futzing adorable. A way that makes something in Clint’s chest flutter and go all gooey.

There’s one of those damned smiles directed at Clint now, as Barnes slides into the booth next to Steve. “Hey,” he says. “Hope you don’t mind I crashed your party.”

“No,” Clint says, maybe a little too fast, a little to emphatically. “I mean. It’s fine. We just, ya know, run through the operation.”

Barnes nods, and then looks up at the waitress who has returned with their pizza and beers. He orders a beer, and Rogers orders another pizza since there are three of them now.

It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. Yes, Clint still has Barnes’ star over his heart, but he’s been successfully ignoring it for...an hour, so he grabs a slice of the Meat-Lovers Special and takes a huge bite.

Rogers starts with his questions, and Clint chews his pizza and gets caught up in talking through what he’d seen, why he’d moved from one perch to another. Steve asks question after question, his face serious and fixed in concentration. Now and then, Clint reciprocates, wanting to understand how Rogers saw things from below, if he missed something from his perch. Talking through it puts him into a narrow headspace, as he visualizes the action and explains it to Steve. Sometimes he grabs the salt and pepper shaker, the napkin holder, a water glass, to demonstrate positional information or angles. 

A couple hours later, he looks up from the mess he’s made of the items on the table to explain his last shot, and shakes his head out of action mode. There are three empty pizza pans on their table now, and he’s sporting a small buzz from the four beers he’s had. Rogers pulls out his wallet and throws some bills on the table (he always insists on paying even though Clint has money – just not, you know, _with him_ ), and all three of them stand and head toward the exit.

Once they’re out on the street, it occurs to Clint that he and Rogers just talked to each other for two hours, and he hadn’t said a word to Barnes. He shakes Rogers offered hand, then reaches a tentative hand toward Barnes.

Bucky takes it, and…nothing.

Not that he was expecting anything. Because he wasn’t. It’s possible his stomach did a little flip-flop there for a second, just before their hands touched, hoping Barnes would react. But he didn’t, and Clint reminds himself that he’s not gonna, and that he should stop being stupid.

“Hey, sorry about that. Didn’t mean to, you know, talk so much. I guess that musta been sorta boring.”

Barnes shakes his head. “It wasn’t,” he says quietly, flashing that damned smile.

Steve raises his arm to flag down a passing taxi. “You wanna share a cab?”

“Nah. It’s a nice night. Think I’ll walk a while.”

Rogers looks dubiously up at the sky as the cab pull up. “You sure?”

“Yep. I’m good.”

Steve looks at him funny. “Suit yourself. Come on, Buck.” He nudges Barnes and they climb into the cab.

Clint stares after the vehicle as it recedes down the block. He just spent two hours with his Potential and didn’t say a goddamned word to him. He rests his forehead against a streetlight and closes his eyes, then pulls back and bangs it hard, one time.

Good job, Barton.

He opens his eyes in time to watch the cab turn the corner two blocks up. A drop of water splatters on his face, and when he looks up, the sky opens and deluge pours down on him. He sighs deeply, and starts walking.

* * *

First Quarter

The problem is, they just don’t see each other that often. It’s not like those early days right after the Battle of New York, when they all stayed at the Tower for six months while they gelled as a team. Now Clint lives in Bed-Stuy, Steve and Barnes are ensconced in Brooklyn Heights, Natasha’s flopping in Queens, and Phil is near SHIELD HQ in Manhattan. Thor and Banner still stay at the Tower, and Tony still insists on some group meals – usually after a particularly tough fight, claiming its tradition not to be messed with after the whole Loki/spacewhale/shawarma thing. But mostly, they’ve settled back into their own lives and routines and only see each other when they assemble.

And Clint’s been kinda busy with those damned tracksuits, so it's a first quarter moon before he sees Barnes again.

Not like he’s keeping track or anything.

Coulson had called Strike Team Delta out on a local SHIELD operation, the end result being that Clint is covered in a thick coat of rancid grease. He sneaks in the back door at Stark Tower because the showers in the locker room at Tony’s range are a hundred times better than the decontamination showers at SHIELD HQ, and a million times better than the shitty shower in his Bed-Stuy apartment. He really should talk to the Super about that. Heh.

The freight elevator door opens and Clint barrels forward, impatient to get out of his disgusting and reeking clothes, and he literally runs right into Barnes. He falls on his ass, but Barnes doesn’t because he’s a human tank.

Damn it. Of all the people to run into it had to be his Potential? How is this his life?

“Sorry,” Barnes says and reaches down to grab him.

“No, don’t!” Clint yelps but it’s too late. Barnes has already yanked him to his feet, but now he’s looking at his own hand – and the parts of his body that had made contact with Clint’s in the collision – with a moue of growing horror.

“What _is_ that?” Barnes asks, bringing an arm up to cover his nose.

Clint can feel his face flush. “Uh, sorry. I had to dive into a vat of some gross stuff at a rendering plant to make a shot. It’s really awful, I know. Sorry,” he says again. Then, because he needs to transition somehow, he asks, “So, what are you doing here?”

“I was…” Barnes seems distracted by the smell, “…using Stark’s range.” He gestures vaguely in the direction Clint’s headed, then furrows his brow. “You… Did you do it _on purpose?_ ”

“Uh, yeah?” Clint answers and shifts awkwardly. “Hey, I made the shot though, so that’s what counts, right?” he says lightly, bringing a hand up to rub the back of his neck. It’s slimy and he quickly drops his hand to wipe it on his pants. Which are also covered with slime. He stares down at his hand. “Ugh,” he mutters to himself. When he looks back at Barnes, he’s watching Clint with an unreadable expression. Clint ducks his gaze. “Uh, I’m gonna go take a shower now,” he mumbles and then skirts around Bucky and heads to the showers.

He strips off his tac gear and stumbles into the shower, resting his forehead against the cool tile as the filth sluices from his body.

That couldn’t really have gone worse.

Futz.

* * *

Waxing Gibbous

The fight looks to be winding down; momentum has shifted and the Avengers on the ground appear to finally be getting the better of the mechanical blue T-Rex. Clint’s standing on the parapet of the mid-town building, eyes scanning the scene below him, looking for a way to be useful. He can clearly see the shot he could make to disable the T-Rex and end this thing, but he doesn’t quite have the right angle from where he’s standing. He needs to be about six feet west, which would put him squarely…in mid-air. He sighs and keeps watching for an opening that doesn’t require him to take the leap.

He's watching the T-Rex closely, searching for vulnerabilities, when he sees the machine’s eyes shift minutely. _Damn it_. There’s a civilian with headphones in, walking down the street completely oblivious to what’s going on.

He considers the options and makes a swift decision. (Oh, Cap is _definitely_ gonna wanna talk about this one…) “Hey, guys, I’m gonna need some back-up in a few seconds,” he informs the team.

It says a lot about how familiar he is with Hawkeye’s field tactics that Cap immediately yells, “Hawkeye, DO NOT—”

He ignores Cap and leaps into the air, twisting as he does and shooting two arrows into the nearly invisible gap between the T-Rex’s head and its neck. He hears a chorus of swearing in his ear as he continues his fall, and he laughs a little.

Below him, Hulk roars as the T-Rex goes down. A second later, he’s enveloped in green. It hurts exactly as much as it should when you come to a dead stop against an immovable object while traveling at an alarmingly fast speed. Which is to say – a lot. _Ow._

It could be worse though, because he and Hulk have been working on the concept of ‘soft hands’ and it seems like Big Green made an effort to lessen the impact. Hulk sets him carefully on the ground and Clint wipes the grimace of pain off his face as the rest of the team converges, all of them clearly pissed. Only Barnes doesn’t seem to have anything to say. He’s just staring at Clint like he’s crazy.

“That was completely unnecessary, Hawkeye,” Cap says, using his ‘stern’ voice. “We were close to disabling the thing from below...”

And they didn’t need Hawkeye for that, Clint’s brain helpfully supplies. 

“…and you could have been killed!”

“Cap, there was a civilian.” He points down the block where the girl is still seemingly oblivious. “There wasn’t time for debate.”

Cap blinks at the girl as she walks past them, never lifting her eyes from her phone. “It was still dangerous,” he says, but the wind is gone from his sail.

“Nah.” he says, squeezing his bow tightly in an effort to quell the fine tremors from the massive adrenaline surge. “I knew Hulk would catch me, right Big Guy?” He tips his face up and grins at his buddy.

“Hulk catch Birdie,” Hulk grunts, then stalks away, the ground vibrating with every step.

“You should get to Medical, Hawkeye,” Cap predictably tells him.

Clint’s pretty sure he’s got a few bruises forming…everywhere…but it’s nothing he can’t manage. “Cap, I’m fine—"

Cap’s having none of it. “Medical.” He points at Clint. “ _Now._ ”

“Bossy,” Clint mutters as everyone starts to disperse, and when he turns, he nearly runs right into Barnes again. “Yeah?” Clint asks.

“It was a pretty risky play.”

Clint shrugs. “Hulk and I have an understanding. He doesn’t miss.”

Barnes considers that. “What if you had?”

“Then that girl might be dead, is that what you want to hear?”

Barnes eyebrows dart inward for a split second, and Clint has no idea what the man is thinking.

“It’s a good thing I don’t miss,” Clint points out curtly. Of all the variables in the play he’d made, that was the only one he _hadn’t_ been worried about.

Before Barnes can answer, Clint pivots and heads toward the EMTs that Cap has standing by. He doesn’t need it, there’s nothing to be done about bruises, but if it gives him an excuse to get away from the bewildering expression on his Potential’s face, then he’ll go happily.

* * *

Full Moon

Clint uses his key card to let himself into the range at Stark Tower. Easy access to the place is the one of the few things he misses about living there. Stark had gutted a couple of floors and put in some shooting lanes of varying lengths, then added moving targets once he’d seen that Clint needed more of a challenge. But better still, Stark had put in an elaborate bouldering complex and climbing wall, and developed 3-dimentional holographic targets that would appear and disappear randomly, and would digitally explode when his arrow hit them.

Clint’s still a little sore from his collision with Hulk a few days before and he wants to work out some of the pain and stiffness in his muscles. He knows it doesn’t really work that way, but there’s nothing that makes him feel better than a couple hours of centered focus with his bow. Honestly, he usually can’t stop grinning when he’s messing around on Stark’s Avengers’ Playground.

He digs out his bow and quiver and stretches for a few minutes before he takes off onto the course. When he’s got his bow in his hand and something to concentrate on, all the rest of it falls away. All the pain, the insecurities, the self-doubt. He even forgets about the Flare mark over his heart as he draws arrow after arrow and looses them through the range.

A few hours in, his arms and legs are burning from overuse and the bruises on his torso throb in time with his pounding heart, but he keeps pushing himself, clearing his mind, his whole world narrowed down to the next shot, the next hand and toe holds.

He’s well past the point where Coulson would have yanked his range privileges if he were here to see, when his leg gives out for a microsecond and his foot slips on a fake boulder. He’s able to reroute his momentum into a twisting flip and catch a handhold on the rock wall, but it’s awkward and he slams hard into it. He has to drop his bow to reach up and grasp the wall with his other hand, and it clatters to the ground twenty feet below.

“Hey!” Clint hears someone call in alarm from across the room, and he nearly slips again in his surprise that he wasn’t aware that someone else was there with him.

He takes a breath and finds holds for his feet, then slowly descends the wall. When he gets there, he comes face to face with Barnes.

“What’re you doing here?” Clint pants through labored breaths.

“I came to shoot. Was enjoying the show instead. Are you okay?” He stoops to pick up Clint’s bow.

Clint feels his face heat. “I’m fine.” He snatches the bow from Barnes’ metal hand.

“Are you sure?” Barnes presses, then his eyes go wide for a second, and before Clint realizes what he’s doing, he’s grabbing the bottom of Clint’s t-shirt and tugging at it. “Are those bruises from the other day?”

Clint shoves Barnes’ hand away before he can lift the shirt high enough to reveal the Flare. “I said I’m fine!” he snaps.

Barnes starts to reach toward him again, then seems to think better of it and pulls his arm back. “Should you be in here doing that when you’re banged up that bad?”

Being the only regular human on the team definitely has its drawbacks, not least of them being that they tend to treat him like spun glass when they see his vulnerabilities. “It’s not that bad and I said I’m fine.” Thankfully, he’s near the start of the bouldering course, so he only has to walk a few feet to grab his bow case. He carefully places his bow back inside and zips it up. “I’m done here,” he says over his shoulder. “You can have the place to yourself.”

Barnes doesn’t respond and Clint hits the elevator button. The door opens immediately. He steps inside and turns to see that Barnes is still staring after him. When the elevator closes, he lets a little whimper escape as he slumps against the wall.

He decides that this day officially sucks. He’s going back to bed.

* * *

Waning Gibbous

The second they’d mopped up from the battle, Clint had hailed a cab to hustle back to Bed-Stuy as quickly possible. He may have led the cabbie to believe that the urgency had something to do with the glowing orange creatures they’d been battling in the Hudson River, and not because he’d promised Simone he’d babysit. She has to take her mom to New Jersey for a doctor appointment, so Clint really can’t be late.

The cabbie spends more time warily watching Clint in his rearview mirror than he does watching the road.

He feels another warm tickle on his face and pinches the bridge of his nose again, hoping to stem the flow of blood once and for all. “Uh, I know this looks bad, but I’m one of the good guys,” Clint tells him. He gets a dubious flick of eyes in the mirror, and adds, “I promise?”

When they pull up to his apartment building, Clint reaches for his wallet and belatedly remembers that he doesn’t carry it when he’s in his tac gear. Futz.

“Hey, uh, sorry, can you wait here a sec? I gotta run upstairs and get some money to pay you.”

The cabbie doesn’t answer, so Clint opens the door, knocking his bow against the back window and nearly falling into the gutter when his quiver catches on the cab as he’s climbing out. The second he closes the door, the cab squeals away. “Hey!” Clint yells, but the cabbie doesn’t stop. Or slow down. He makes note of the cab number so he can send the guy an envelope of cash later, and shuffles into the building.

An hour later, he’s got a bandage across the bridge of his nose and Simone’s rug-rats are climbing him like a tree, when there’s a knock at his door. “Hey, I gotta answer that,” he says to them.

They giggle but don’t let go, so he shuffles across the room the best he can with one kid clinging to his back and the other pretzeled around his leg. He’s not prepared to open the door to find Barnes standing in the hall with a pizza box in his hand.

“Uh…hi?”

“Hi.” Bucky’s eyes flick toward the kids hanging on him like monkeys, then back up to Clint’s face. “You look different.” A grin licks at the corner of his mouth but then disappears.

“Do I?” He looks down at himself. “Oh, right. Yeah.” He smiles awkwardly.

“Are they…yours?”

“What? No! God, no! Can you imagine,” he grins. “Nobody in their right mind would let me have kids.”

Bucky cocks his head. “But someone will let you…babysit their kids?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, I can _take care_ of kids. For a little while. I mean, I’m not going to let ‘em go play in the street or anything.” He crosses his arms over his chest. He feels suddenly defensive for Simone. Say what you want about Clint, but Simone is a good mom, and she wouldn’t leave her kids alone with Clint if she thought he wouldn’t be able to keep them safe.

Bucky blinks at him and there’s an awkward silence. A small arm squeezes tighter around Clint’s neck and he chokes a little, so he carefully pries the limb off of his throat and disengages the small creature from his back. When he sets him on the floor, he latches onto his other leg. Bucky watches it all without comment.

“So, what’re you doing here?”

Barnes clears his throat. “Um. I thought you might want some pizza?” He holds the box up a little.

“Huh. Really? Is it, like, leftover, or something?”

Bucky shakes his head. “No, you took off kinda quick and I thought you might be hungry. I picked one up from Guido’s.”

“Yeah?” It smells like a Meat-Lovers Special. It smells amazing.

“Yeah,” Bucky answers. “So, do you babysit often?”

“I help out when I can. Simone’s all by herself, so…” he shrugs. “Everyone needs help sometimes, you know?”

Bucky nods and things get awkward again. He looks down at the box in his hand, then back up at Clint. “Well. Here,” he pushes the box toward Clint. “Maybe the kids’ll want some.”

Clint looks down at the two round faces next to his knees. Both of them nod eagerly, and okay, yes, maybe his kitchen isn’t well stocked, but he wasn’t going to let them go hungry. He was going to…order a pizza. He takes the box. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” The moment stretches before Barnes finally flashes that damned smile and then turns to leave. When he gets to the stairs, he grabs the bannister and it wobbles under his hand. “Hey,” he calls back to Clint. “You should get the Super to fix this. Not safe for the kids.” He smiles again and gestures toward Clint’s cling-ons.

Clint waves his agreement and quickly closes the door, leaning his forehead against it with a sigh. “I’m the Super,” he mumbles into the wood panel.

He only indulges himself for a moment though, before glancing down at the urchins by his feet. “You guys want some pizza?”

The affirmative response comes in stereo.

He grins at them and shuffles to the kitchen, both of them hanging on his legs the entire way.

It’s not until he’s dropping a piece of pizza onto the floor for Lucky that it occurs to him that he could have invited Barnes to stay and share the pizza.

Futz.

* * *

Third Quarter

A few days after later, the Avengers are called out again. It’s a long, drawn-out battle against Doom and his goddamned Doombots, and if Doom had maybe 50 more of them, Clint isn’t sure they would’ve come out on top. Doom developed a damned EMPbot and fried Tony’s suit almost immediately. It was just plain luck that Clint saw him falling and was able to loose a net arrow to catch him before he hit the ground; Tony had been forced to sit out the rest of the fight where Clint had secured him in the net like a baby in a baby-bouncer.

Unfortunately, the EMP had also taken out everybody’s comms, which, more unfortunately for Clint, also meant that he was mostly deaf the entire time since his comms double as his aids when he’s in the field.

Once it’s over, they’re all exhausted except for Stark, who’s clean and not dinged up like the rest of them, and who’s insistent that they all go out for Bolivian food to celebrate their triumphant victory over Dr. Doom. Clint honestly doesn’t even realize what’s happening until they pull up at the restaurant – he’d thought they were headed back to debrief. Everyone looks tired and he suspects they all would rather just go back to their respective places and collapse, but no one seems to muster the will to argue with Stark about it.

Clint’s got new bruises on top of old bruises, and he can’t hear more than muffled sounds at low frequency, so he drops into a chair, gestures at Natasha who understands and orders for him, then zones out for the entire meal.

The waitress is clearing away their dishes when he looks up to see Nat’s worried eyes on him across the table. _Medical?_ she signs at him.

He gives her a crooked smile and waves her off, signs back that he’s just tired. Everyone is getting up from the table and Clint can feel but not hear the chairs sliding on the floor, and he’s trying to work up the energy to stand up himself, when he looks up to see that, except for him, Barnes is the only person still sitting.

He’s staring at Clint with an inscrutable expression, and then he slashes his index finger from his ear to his mouth.

The surprise that Barnes knows ASL is quickly supplanted by the observation that he hadn’t even made it a question. Asshole.

Clint’s whole body goes tense, which serves to remind him of his many not so small hurts. But he’d rather be reminded of those, than the bigger one staring at him from across the table. _Yeah. I’m deaf. It’s not usually a problem except when an EMP goes off and fries my aids._ He’s signing fast, with jerky movements, like he always does when his hurt or anger get the better of him.

Barnes seems to take a few seconds to translate what Clint has just said, then he raises his hands again. _You couldn’t hear during the fight._

Again, he doesn’t even make it a question, and Clint feels his face flush in humiliation. He looks away for a few seconds and takes a calming breath, then turns back to Barnes. _I did just fine_ , he signs back, deliberately slow this time (though still jerkier than he’d like), making sure Barnes understands. He gives Barnes an empty smile, then pushes his chair back and stands, ignoring the whole-body throbbing that he gets for his trouble.

Clint’s had a whole lifetime of confrontations with ableist assholes who thought he was ‘less’ because he can’t hear. But somehow this one hurts more than usual, in a way he doesn’t want to contemplate too deeply right now. He leaves the restaurant, ignoring the largely inaudible calls he can hear from the others as they’re piling back into Stark’s limo. He walks the six miles to Bed-Stuy instead, trying to work off the hurt and self-doubt that he always thinks he’s put behind him, but never quite does. He replays Barnes comments in his head, rethinks the fight with the Doombots, considers every move he made, scrutinizing alternatives, looking for mistakes. By the time he gets home, has showered and slapped some bandages on spots where it’s completely necessary, and collapsed onto his couch with a few icepacks, he’s identified 22 things he maybe could have done differently that might possibly have kept more people from being hurt.

Maybe all those people weren’t wrong about him. 

A cold nose nudges his hand. “Hey, Lucky.” Simone must have heard him walk by her apartment and let the dog in while he was showering. Bless her. “Come on up,” he mumbles, and a second later, sixty pounds of dog is lying on top of him. It’s comforting; like one of those weighted blankets, except smellier. He tugs the old purple blanket off the back of the couch and over the two of them, and tries to sleep.

* * *

Waning Crescent

Well, this looks bad.

The damned Tracksuits are back and apparently they’re _really_ mad now. Ivan had been calling him and demanding his dog back, and then earlier today he’d informed Clint that they were coming to get the dog. And him. Clint had asked Simone to get everyone out of the building because he didn’t want any of his tenants to end up as collateral damage, and then he’d come up to the roof where he hoped he could fend them off at least until everyone down below was safe. He’s been doing a respectable job of it – keeping them at least a block away - but arrows gotta run out eventually and Clint’s getting frighteningly close to that moment.

He can hear his neighbors down below, still making their way out of the building. He looses a couple more arrows. Come on, hurry up…

His phone rings and he assumes it’s Ivan calling again to demand he hand Lucky over, so he’s surprised to see Rogers name flash on the screen.

“Hey, Steve,” Clint says, “Uh, I’m kinda in the middle of something right now. Can I call you back?”

“I can see that, Clint. We’re out in front of your building. What’s going on?”

Clint looks over the edge. Rogers and Barnes are standing on his stoop in their civvies. “Oh, hey. Hi,” he says. Rogers tips his head and squints up at him. Clint waves. Barnes is helping Grills get Mrs. McGinty into a cab while a bunch of other tenants mill around on the sidewalk. “Hey, Steve, can you maybe try to get folks to clear away from the building. Like, a couple blocks away?”

“Why? Clint, what’s going on?”

Down the block, a gun-wielding Tracksuit is making a play to get into the alley. “Oops, gotta go,” he says and drops the phone. He pulls an arrow from his quiver and fires it; the thug falls with a yell and a second later the arrow is back in Clint’s hand. Gosh he loves his boomerang arrows.

He’s making another circuit of the roof, watching the perimeter, when Rogers and Barnes burst onto the roof, Lucky close on their heels and barking. 

“What’re you doing here?” Clint asks, firing another arrow and knocking another Tracksuit back.

Rogers and Barnes both duck so their heads don’t get taken off on the arrow’s return. “We came by to see if you wanted to go get a pizza, but it kinda looks like maybe you could use a hand.”

“Uh, I think I got it under control, actually.” In the window of the door to the roof, he catches sight of another Tracksuit who’s made his way to the adjacent building’s roof. He fires behind himself without looking and the thug goes down. Barnes stares at him with wide eyes. Heh. He loves that trick.

The air is suddenly quiet. Too quiet. A quiet that makes Clint suspicious. He catches sight of something in his periphery and jerks his head around to see Lucky pick something up.

Aw, grenade, no.

Clint sprints across the roof – Rogers’ yell of “Clint, don’t!” completely ignored - and snatches the grenade out of Lucky’s mouth. He pushes the dog behind him and throws the grenade into the air.

He had hoped he could fling it high and away enough that maybe they’d all just get a little shrapnel raining down on them. But he’d screwed up, didn’t get there fast enough. The grenade explodes and the concussive blast tears something in his chest and throws him against the wall of the stair tower. He careens off of it and topples gracelessly over the side of the building.

‘Huh, I’m gonna die now,’ is Clint’s only real thought as he scrabbles desperately for any handhold, but he comes up empty, and then he’s falling. Until he isn’t. Instead, he abruptly stops and his head bounces off the side of the building. His shoulder screams, and maybe Clint screams, too - he’s not sure. He hopes not because that would be just embarrassing.

He cranes his neck upward, blinking to try to clear the blood from his eyes, and he sees Barnes hanging over the side of the building with him. He’s got one foot and a few fingers hooked over the brick parapet, and his metal hand is holding Clint’s in a literal death grip. They’re 80 feet up and, yeah, this looks _really_ bad.

Steve is there shouting above them, and in the distance, he can see what looks like both Iron Man and Falcon speeding toward them, but he can also feel his hand slipping out of Barnes’ and he’s not sure they’ll get there in time. Hopefully one of them can catch up with him when he starts plummeting to the ground in about 5 seconds.

He looks down, thinks better of it, and looks back up to see Rogers bracing himself and grabbing both of Barnes’ legs. Barnes has a mask of concentrated intensity on his face, and with Rogers holding on to him now, he lets go of his handhold and reaches down to grab Clint’s wrist with his other hand. Clint feels a ‘whoosh’ run through his entire body and everything seems to go silent as heat flares in his chest. Two seconds later, Bucky is hauling him up and handing him off to Rogers. Iron Man and Falcon land on the roof just as Bucky gets his feet back under himself. 

Rogers lays him carefully on the roof. Clint tastes iron in his mouth and he can barely breathe, and distantly, he notices that there’s a lot of blood on his t-shirt. None of it matters. He cranes his neck, grinning like a madman, and trying to see around Steve’s stupidly wide shoulders. 

“Hey,” he says, when Bucky finally steps into view.

Sam elbows Rogers out of the way and strips off his wings as he kneels down beside Clint. “Damn it. He’s got some shrapnel in his chest and a dislocated shoulder,” Wilson says to no one in particular. “Barton, are you okay with me reducing that?” Sam asks him, even as he’s shoving some gauze into Rogers hand and guiding him to press it to Clint’s head wound.

“You felt it too, right?” Clint gasps, twisting to try to see around Wilson. A second later, Bucky moves so he’s kneeling by Clint’s feet and he’s just _staring_ at him.

“What?” Sam asks him distractedly, eyes and hands skimming Clint’s body, looking for more damage. “Stay still, Barton.”

“Tell me you felt that,” Clint reiterates, eyes fixed on Bucky. A few feet away, Bucky continues to stare. He looks…confused.

“I think he’s in shock already. He’s not making any sense,” he hears Wilson say. 

“Can I see?” he asks Bucky. He needs to see if Clint’s mark is over Bucky’s heart. “Lemme see,” he pleads.

Dimly, he hears Wilson talking to Rogers about his shoulder. A second later, he feels a blinding pain and his back arches up involuntarily. He might scream again – damn it - but he never takes his eyes from Bucky, who looks like _he’s_ the one in pain.

With his shoulder back in place, Wilson grabs Clint’s t-shirt and starts to pull it up.

“No.” Clint tries to bat his hand away.

“Barton, stay still, damn it. I need to get a look at that chest wound.”

“Don’t.” Clint fights him, desperate to keep his mark hidden. “You can’t.”

“Barnes,” Wilson barks. “Call an ambulance, and see if you can find any first aid supplies.”

Bucky doesn’t move. He’s focused on Clint and still just _staring_.

“Goddamn it, Barnes!” Sam yells, “ _Call a fucking ambulance!_ ”

“Bucky!” Steve adds. “Go, now!”

Bucky’s suddenly gone and nononono, Clint reaches for him, and in his distraction, Wilson gets a grip on his shirt and rips it apart, exposing Clint’s chest.

“Shit,” Wilson mutters, and Clint looks down, eyes searching, but his whole chest is covered with blood, so he can’t see if the mark is still there. “ _Shitshitshit_ ,” Wilson curses, then grabs the remains of Clint’s t-shirt and _presses_.

Clint’s chest feels like it’s imploding and he screams again. He coughs, igniting more pain, and blood burbles out of his mouth. He cranes his neck, searching, trying to find Bucky – he _needs_ to see Bucky - but the roof starts spinning, and then everything fades to black.

* * *

Waxing Crescent

Clint blinks his eyes open, takes in the familiar room décor and the whole-body discomfort that is clearly muted by drugs, and he instantly knows where he is.

Remembering _why_ he’s in the hospital takes longer, but slowly, foggy memories come back to him: of Ivan and the Tracksuits; of hustling his tenants out of the building; of Lucky, wagging his tail happily with a grenade in his mouth. Of Steve and Bucky…

Oh. _Oh_.

He cranes his neck to see out the window, to see the moon. It’s a waxing crescent. How long has he been _out?_ With rising panic, he clutches at the neck of his gown to try to get a look at his chest, but it’s too tight. One arm is immobilized (there’s a distant memory of Wilson fixing a dislocated shoulder?) and the other hand is encumbered by tubes and hard to maneuver, but he’s got to untie the damned gown so he can _look_ , and—

He hears a muffled voice and then a warm hand grabs Clint’s shaking one. When he looks, Bucky is there. _Relax_ , he signs, then digs in his pocket with his free hand and produces two purple, OTE hearing aids. 

Clint flushes, but disentangles his hand from Bucky’s and manages to get them in his ears.

“You’re okay,” Bucky tells him, grabbing his hand again. “You had some shrapnel in your chest – it punctured your lung – and a pretty nasty concussion. You’ve been out for a few days, but the docs say you’ll be fine.”

“Um…” he rasps, then has to stop and clear his throat. Bucky’s metal hand appears with a cup and straw. He gratefully takes a sip, and when Bucky returns the cup to the table, Clint can’t stop his eyes from flicking down to his chest again.

Bucky gives him that soft smile. “It’s still there.”

Clint freezes and blinks at Bucky, who is now stroking Clint’s hand with his thumb. “Wh…what?”

“My mark. It’s still there. Didn’t even get dinged by the shrapnel.”

“But… _how?_ The moon…it’s, it’s a waxing crescent. It's over.” 

Bucky smiles again and reaches up with his free hand and tugs on the neck of his own shirt. There are two small purple arrows crossed above his heart. “X marks the spot?” he says with some amusement.

Clint stares for a long moment. Swallows. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s not too complicated. You Flared. I converted. It’s pretty simple, really.” He flashes that smile and his eyes _dance_.

“But… _why?_ ”

“Why, what?”

“Why would you have converted?”

Bucky huffs. “Why _wouldn’t_ I?”

“Um." It feels like a trick question. "Because I’m a screw up?”

Bucky frowns. “What have you ever screwed up?”

“Uh, everything?”

A deep crease appears between Bucky’s brows. “For instance?”  
  


Clint’s brain scrambles to provide evidence. “WelI, for one thing, I got you covered in rancid suet.”

“If I got a little bit of goo on my clothes, it was more than worth it for the fact that you jumped into a vat of the stuff so you could take a shot that saved a kid.”

“How…how do you know that?”

“I read the AAR.”

“ _Why?_ ”

Bucky shrugs. “Because I figured there was a story there and I wanted to know what it was.”

“I jumped off a building—"

“Again, to save a civilian. Like a hero would.”

“I overdo it on the range, overextend my puny human muscles. I almost fell off the climbing wall.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What I saw was you parleying a misstep into the most graceful recovery I’ve ever seen, so you _didn’t_ fall off the climbing wall."

“I’m a terrible team player—”

“You are not.”

“—Steve gets pissed when I go off book.”

Bucky laughs. “Are you kidding? Stevie never shuts up about what a keen tactical mind you have. How he learns something from you every time the two of you debrief.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Clint opens his mouth to counter, but Bucky doesn’t let him. “Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop looking for reasons. You’re not going to win this.” 

No, he’s not going to win this. He never wins anything. Life doesn’t work that way for Clint Barton.

He brings out the big guns. “I’m deaf,” he says bluntly.

“So?”

“So, I’m a liability in the field.”

“That day we got blasted with the EMP, you fought that whole battle without your hearing.”

“Exactly.” Finally, Barnes is getting it.

“And it didn’t make a damned bit of difference. You did with four senses what the rest of us needed five to do.”

Huh? He shakes his head in frustration. “I don’t convert my Potentials,” he says quietly, eyes on where their hands are awkwardly entwined around his IV port. “Ever.”

Bucky’s metal hand hooks under his chin and tugs it up. “Look, I know I was gone for a long time and some things may have changed, but I think the rules of the universe still apply in 2014. I’ve got your mark over my heart, Sweetheart. There’s no arguing it.”

Clint looks into Bucky’s eyes and he’d swear the man was telling the truth.

“You’re mine now, and if you think I’m letting you go after I’ve been pining after you for a month, you’re crazy.”

Clint’s jaw drops. “You…you’ve been pining, Buck?”

Bucky honest-to-god blushes. “So hard. Ever since I listened to you and Steve debrief over pizza that time. Steve’s been driving me crazy trying to get me to ask you out.”

“Yeah?”

He shrugs. “I even got my courage up and brought that pizza by your place—”

“Oh, God.” Clint wrestles his hand away from Bucky’s and slaps it across his eyes. “I didn’t even have the good manners to invite you in.”

Bucky huffs. “Yeah, I’d knock some points off for that, but they'd just get added back on because you were _babysitting your neighbor’s kids.”_

The grin on Bucky’s face is infectious and Clint can feel himself giving in. “I gotta tell you, I’m kinda a mess.”

Bucky smiles sweetly, then leans in to kiss him. It’s soft and a little bit wet, and Clint feels a pleasant warmth hum on his chest.

After a lingering moment, Bucky pulls back just far enough to murmur into Clint’s mouth. “Then you’ll be my mess, Sweetheart.”

Clint’s heart skips a few beats. “Yeah,” he finally agrees. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> *looks around nervously* Like I said, waaaaaaay outside my comfort zone with this one, so please be gentle with me. That said, I do always love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for reading!


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